Harris Dunsford
Image Source: Rosemary Nicolaou

Harris F. Dunsford M.D. L.S.A. M.R.C.S. (18 January 1808 – 17 June 1847) was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy.

Dunsford was a student of Samuel Hahnemann, and a colleague of Hugh Cameron, John Chapman, Alfred Day, John James Drysdale, Thomas Engall, John Epps, Gilish, William Hering, Edward Christopher Holland, Victor Massol, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, Samuel Thomas Partridge, and many others.

Dunsford was also friends with Paul Francois Curie and John Epps, the co-founders of the radical and breakaway English Homeopathic Association, formed in opposition to the British Homeopathic Society.

Dunsford was the homeopathic physician of Queen Adelaide, consort of King William IV. He was also homeopathic physician to the Marquis of Anglesey, and Dora Wordsworth, the wife of poet William Wordsworth. Dunsford was also a friend of orthodox surgeon Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke and Queen Victoria’s Physician Accoucher, Sir Charles Locock.

In 1836, Sir William Charles Ellis applied to Frederick Hervey Foster Quin for more information about homeopathy. Quin obliged and sent his colleagues Harris Dunsford, Guiseppe Belluomini, and Paul Francois Curie to assist him at Hanwell Lunatic Asylum.

Harris Dunsford introduced Edward Christopher Holland, a friend from their student days, to the practice of homoepathy.

In the 1840s, Dunsford practiced at 26 Somerset Street, Portman Square, London.

Harris Dunsford was born in 1808 in Tiverton, Devon, to Dissenters Mathew Dunsford (1772 – 1834) and Elizabeth Harris (1774 – 1857)

George Atkin, in his Medical Directory for 1855, thus mentions this distinguished man: He was one of the first English medical practitioners who adopted the homeopathic system of medicine.

Born in the year 1808, he became a licentiate of the Apothecaries Company in 1829.

In 1830 he accepted the appointment of medical attendant to the family of the Marquis of Anglesey and traveled with one of the members thereof on the continent.

In 1833 he took his degree of M. D. at Freiburg. In 1834 he returned to and commenced practice in London, as a hmoeopathic practitioner.

In 1838 he published a work bearing the following title: The Pathogenetic Effects of Some of the Principal Homoeopathic Remedies.

And again, in 1841, he published The Practical Advantages of Homeopathy which he was permitted to dedicate to Her Majesty, Queen Adelaide; and was at the period of his death engaged on a translation of Hartmann’s Therapie.

Dr. Dunsford enjoyed the personal esteem of Samuel Hahnemann, and doubtless it was from that master spirit himself that he imbibed those large and comprehensive views of Homeopathy which so eminently characterize his writings, and so successfully appeared in his practice.

Immediately after his return to London, Dr. Dunsford’s practice began to extend and increase – his quiet and gentlemanly bearing, his patient attention to the tale of the afflicted, combined with a quick apprehension of the nature of the disease labored under, and a generally fortunate mode of treatment, so enhanced his reputation, that he speedily rose to one of the first physicians in the city, and had the honor of prescribing for Her late Majesty, Queen Dowager Adelaide, during the lifetime of the king.

Dr. Dunsford died at London on the night of the 17th of June, 1847 in the 39th year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was cerebral congestion and effusion into the ventricles.

Cut down in the prime of his days, and at the very time when his talents were becoming known, his death was widely and deeply deplored, and his name to this day, is held in affectionate and grateful remembrance by many of his former friends and patients.

Dr. Dunsford left a widow and five children.

A post mortem was conducted by a Mr. White Cooper, and the findings were published in the British Journal of Homoeopathy in 1847:

“Post mortem made about twenty hours after death. The examination was confined to the head. Some difficulty was experienced in the preliminary steps in consequence of the unusual density and thickness of the cranium.

“The necessary section having been completed, endeavors were made to remove the upper portion of the cranium, but so firmly adherent was the dura mater that it was found impracticable to do so. During the removal of the brain between two and three ounces of serum escaped from beneath the arachnoid, and possibly from the ventricles.

“The sinuses of the brain were gorged with blood. The dura mater having been reflected, the pia mater presented the appearance of great vascularity, and on the tipper surface of the left hemisphere there was a small quantity of gritty deposit. The brain was of large size and somewhat beyond the usual weight.

“The cerebral substance was of a natural consistence, but highly vascular throughout. The lateral ventricles contained a small quantity of fluid, but there was reason to believe that a portion had previously escaped. The third ventricle was dilated. The lining membrane of the ventricles was much injected.

“The cerebellum and pons varolii were congested, but otherwise healthy. The medulla spinalis was engorged and much blood flowed from the divided vessels of the membrane. There appeared to have been effusion into the theca. These were the only abnormal appearances discovered upon careful examination.

Harris F Dunsford’s Obituary is in The British Journal of Homeopathy.

Select Publications:

He also translated several homeopathic books from German, including Franz Hartmann‘s Special Therapeutics (1847).